All Grown Up
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Jus in Bello missing scenes and tag: When had Sam grown up on him?


**All Grown Up**  
K Hanna Korossy

So one second Dean was talking to the FBI bigwig, because this was just the kind of crap day where he was trapped behind bars and the feds were parading through to tell him how screwed he was.

The next second, it managed to get so much worse because, hey, they were Winchesters and talented that way. It felt like someone had stabbed a hot ice pick into his shoulder, and he fell back on the bed, cowering helplessly as bullets splintered the wall above his head.

Sam, so far a motionless brooding mass in the cell with him, was suddenly a blur of motion, throwing himself at the guy with the gun, now a solid, pissed-off wall of muscle between Dean and danger. Next thing he knew, Sam was spitting out an exorcism—really? The feds hadn't been enough; they had demons, too?—and the demon didn't stay for the finale, spitting out a threat and then funneling out of the fed's mouth like a black tornado.

Dean had just made it shakily to his feet when the other cops and Henriksen rushed in, ready to shoot them for taking down one of their own.

Sam somehow talked them out of it. Didn't hurt that something exploded outside the next moment as distraction. Dean knew that was bad news, but it was also kinda a relief to have everybody leave Sam and him and his bleeding shoulder alone again. Dean listed toward his brother with a tired groan.

"Hey." Those huge hands grabbed him, maneuvered him down on the bed. "How bad is it?"

Sam didn't let him answer. He rotated Dean's arm, probably gently but still making him hiss. Blunt fingers felt the wound on either side of Dean's body, then across his collarbone to the ball of his shoulder. At Sam's quiet order, Dean coughed, then locked down on a whimper as he jarred his injured body.

"Dude, I think you got lucky," Sam said slowly. "Looks like it hit the sweet spot—under the bone and major blood vessels and nerves, and above the lung." He patted Dean's good shoulder. "Just gotta stop the bleeding."

"Lucky," Dean grumbled under his breath. "Right. How 'bout next time you be the lucky one?"

"I already took one in the shoulder this year, man, remember? Bela?" Sam was next to the toilet, where he was hopefully getting some toilet paper and not making a pit stop. "Another thing we've got to thank her for."

An involuntary shiver ran through Dean. Henriksen's threats still buzzed through his brain: Super Max prison, tiny isolation room, never seeing Sam again. Yeah, he had a lot to thank Bela for. Couldn't wait to do it in person.

Sam returned to sit beside him…and then the lights went out.

They both stood. "Oh, that can't be good," Dean muttered.

Sam shook his head in silent agreement and turned back to Dean. "Let me see your shoulder."

"We need a plan, Sam," Dean argued. Better than whining like a girl as Sam poked at the wound.

"Yeah, well, how about you work on that and I'll work on you not bleeding to death, all right?" Sam was folding a strip of toilet paper into a neat compress. "How many times has this shoulder gotten it, anyway? Daevas clawed it up, the Benders burned you—"

"There a reason we're reliving my greatest hits, Sam?"

"—_I_ shot you here—"

"Meg shot me," Dean corrected stubbornly.

"—and you just have to look at it wrong and it pops out. How many times has it been, man, six? Seven?"

"I wasn't counting," Dean muttered. Which was a blatant lie; he totally agreed with Martin Riggs on dislocated shoulders being awesome. Besides the whole agony part. He was usually proud of how many times he'd had to put it back.

Not while Sam was leaning over him with a frown, though, the tips of his fingers red with Dean's blood.

Sam worked calmly, careful but firm, hands steady. It was miles away from the first time Dean had been shot. Sam pressed down on the wound, hard, and Dean made a face, grunting in pain.

"All right, don't be such a wuss."

Many, many miles away.

00000

_"Dean, w-what happened?" Sam stared at him, white-faced, as their dad helped Dean in the door and over to a chair._

_ "It's okay, squirt," Dean grunted. "'S not as bad as it looks." He folded heavily into the seat, then bent to ride out the crash of pain. _

_ "He's all right, Sam," their dad said calmly. "Farmer got him in the leg—the bullet just tore through some muscle." _

_ Sam's mouth dropped open. _

_Yeah, Dean wouldn't have found that super reassuring, either. "Sam, seriously, I'm gonna be fine. Old McDonald just didn't get that we were there for the chupacabra, not his stinkin' animals. It's no big deal. Dude, get the first aid kit, huh?" When the teen hesitated, Dean gave him a wan smile and nodded toward the kitchen. "Please?"_

_ Sam blinked, then ran. _

_ Dad sighed behind Dean. "We can't keep coddling him, son. Sam's gotta learn how to deal with an emergency." _

_ Dean snorted; he loved his dad, respected him, but sometimes John Winchester was just clueless. "He's _fourteen_, Dad. There'd be something wrong with him if he _didn't_ get upset at his brother coming home bloody."_

_ Thankfully, Dad's response was curtailed when a spasm ripped through Dean's leg, choking a groan from him. _

_ Sammy was back then, helping their dad in competent silence. But Dean saw his ashen face, the way his hands shook as he handed John supplies, and didn't mind it one bit when Sam spent the rest of the evening curled close to his side. _

00000

They split up to defend the station. Henriksen stayed with Dean because he was still new at this, and Sam was the only one Dean trusted to hold the fort alone at the back door. The whole discussion of positions and strategy was carried out in silent conversation, ending with Sam nodding and moving off.

And then it was showtime.

For long minutes, Dean didn't know anything but shooting, reloading, spraying holy water, and clubbing demons in the face. The hosts would be feeling all of it in the morning, but they couldn't worry about that now. Not when both their lives and the possessees' were at stake.

Henriksen had peeled off, heading back toward the office to start the exorcism playing on cue. Sam had been pushed back into the main lobby, at Dean's six now where he belonged. Dean felt the wide shoulders push into his, and relaxed into the fight, more focused and driven.

From the corner of his eye, he was aware of Sam doing similar damage. His little brother packed a piledriver of a punch, and he didn't hesitate to fight back against the tide of demons, even when they were women or half his size. The good guys were outnumbered, but they were holding their own.

Until the demons played dirty, the petite leader slamming them against the wall with a wave of the arm. Dean felt a crawl of fear even knowing they still had an ace up their sleeve.

It was over fast after that, the exorcism blasting through the station's speakers and sending their enemies up in smoke. All that was left then was a lot of dispossessed bodies, fallen and just starting to stir.

Dean massaged the jagged pain in his shoulder and surveyed the wreckage, then Sam, whose eyes were filled with quiet, steady relief. Henriksen turned up, and Dean shrugged. That was it.

Sam began making his way around the room, picking up and calming the very folks he'd been taking down a minute before. It was kinda surreal, no less so when Dean realized Sam seemed more awkward and less confident helping their attackers than when he'd been blowing them away.

And didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that.

00000

_He knew why Sam had been beaten by the skinwalker._

_ Dean sat on the floor and listened to Sam's congested breathing up on the bed behind him. His nose was still stuffed with dried blood, his throat swollen with purple bruises that matched Dean's hands. It was a wonder he could breathe at all. When Dean had burst in the door, his double's hands had been around Sam's neck, Sam's struggles feeble and fading. Another minute, and he would've been down for the count._

_ Dean got it, though. Yeah, there were some techniques they had to brush up on; Sam hadn't been back in the game long and was still rusty. And, true, Dean still usually beat him when they skirmished. He was stronger, more experienced, and in better shape. It made sense his double would be, too._

_ But the main reason Sam had lost this one was because he'd fought with his heart more than his body. Even though his head knew he wasn't fighting Dean, his heart had still balked at going all out against something that wore his brother's face and taunted him in Dean's voice. Sam had almost died because he hadn't wanted to hurt Dean. _

_ "Stupid kid," Dean whispered to himself, dropping his head back against the edge of the mattress. Dad would've been furious. Dean was mostly just worried. _

_ Sam muttered something in his sleep and rolled over. His hand flopped over onto the top of Dean's head. _

_ Dean's mouth twitched in the darkness. And even as he made plans for how to try to train that weakness out of his hunting partner, Dean knew he would miss it if it were completely gone. _

00000

They'd done it: they ended up saving everybody's life, doing it without a single loss.

Until Lilith had come in and blown the station—and Nancy, Henriksen, and the deputy—to kingdom come.

Dean hadn't been all that surprised at Ruby's callous disregard for Nancy's life. Demons were all about results, and collateral human damage was a plus, not a obstacle. Didn't matter how she put it, how many lives she said Nancy's sacrifice would save. The point was that she didn't care about the one life that would be lost, or that they'd be the ones taking it.

What Dean hadn't been expecting was Sam's silence on the subject.

The Mystery Spot had changed Sam, Dean knew, as had the past nine months of Dean's clock ticking down. What he didn't know was when exactly Sam had become so ruthlessly pragmatic. It hadn't been that long ago that he would've been the one arguing that they couldn't kill a person to save thirty, all that _needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one _Star Trek crap. Somewhere along the way, the tables had turned and Dean had become the conscience of the team.

Funny how Sam still turned out to be the right one.

They sat a long time after Ruby left, the TV mutely playing the same photographs and burning-building footage over and over.

"We didn't know, Dean," Sam finally ventured.

"And how does that make it better, Sam?" he shot back bitterly.

"Weren't you the one telling me that you didn't want to win a war that way, by turning into _them_? You really think it would've been better if we'd killed Nancy?"

He poked at that thought like a loose tooth. Holding the girl down and cutting her heart out, vaporizing every demon in the area. Would Lilith still have come looking for them, killing everyone who was left? Maybe. Would Dean not have been able to live with himself?

Definitely.

His face crumpled and he turned it away.

He felt Sam move from his own bed to Dean's, leg warm against his, shoulder just brushing Dean's injured one. He didn't say anything, and Dean kind of appreciated it, knowing no words or argument would make this better. But it was still some comfort having his brother there.

When had Sam grown up on him?

00000

_"We're not gonna kill Max."_

_ "Then what?" Dean shot back. "I hand him over to the cops and say, 'Lock him up, officer, he kills with the power of his mind'?"_

_ "Forget it," Sam said flatly. "No way, man." _

_ "Sam—" He got it, the way Sam related to the kid, the sympathy he felt for him. But Sam needed to get, too, that this "kid" had already killed two people and was working on a third, and not in a way that normal law enforcement could handle. They would have to take care of this one._

_ "Dean. He's a_ person_. We can talk to him."_

_ Well, Sam did talk to him. It didn't turn out so well. Sam ended up locked in a closet, and Dean nearly got his brains blown all over the wall. Then Max turned his powers on himself, solving the problem of how to stop him._

_ Dean could tell that it kept eating at Sam, though. Not just the issue of the visions, or even the possible burst of TK. But the idea that Max was the victim, not the bad guy, and they had stopped him instead of helping him. _

_ "You know you saved my life back there," Dean spoke up suddenly in the middle of a long, empty road somewhere in Nebraska._

_ Sam's mouth actually softened into an almost smile at that. "Yeah, I know," he said quietly._

_ Dean didn't take personally, however, the fact that he knew it wasn't enough._

00000_  
_

He remembered Sammy's earliest attempts at first aid, his initial months on the hunt, the first time he'd faced the moral dilemmas of "us versus them." The nerves and naivety and inexperience. That night at the police station, however, he'd saved Dean's hide and treated his injuries without flinching, fought like a battle-trained soldier and saved their asses with both muscle and mind, and considered the pragmatism of a plan that even Dean hadn't been able to stomach, even if Sam eventually saw the danger in it. Was this the kid who'd cried when Dad had handed him his first gun, who'd needed comfort more than Dean did when Dean got hurt?

No, this was the man whom Dean trusted to back him up, even when the enemy came in innocents' clothing. The adult who would be able to survive on his own after Dean was gone, take care of himself and stay strong and do the right thing. This was what Dean had been working toward ever since Dad had first told him to take care of Sam.

But it didn't stop some small, stupid, buried-deep part of him from mourning for that lost fumbling, starry-eyed kid.

**The End**


End file.
